Visa is now testing biometric credit cards

Believe it or not, a lot of people are still getting used to credit cards and some companies are seriously considering to change them. As you probably noticed, all of them store information on a small chip, but this technology can soon become yesterday’s news!

According to Yahoo Finance, Visa announced that they’re testing on-card biometrics for contactless payments made at two different banks, the Mountain America Credit Union, from West Jordan, Utah, and The Bank of Cyprus.

Fingerprints can be the solution to credit card fraud

If you’re not familiar with this technology, you should know that it relies on physical characteristics of an individual, in order to authenticate his or her identity. Visa cardholders will use their fingerprint, in this case, for recognition, as PINs or signatures will be removed from the authentication procedure.

The biometric chips on the cards are programmed with a template of your fingerprint, securely stored. To be more specific, when the car is used, customers will be required to hold their finger against a small sensor on the card, while inserting the chip into a card reader or simply waving it over, if they use a contactless card.

The fingerprint will be compared to the one stored on the chip’s memory, to verify the customer’s identity. A green or red light – both of them integrated into the card – will indicate if the match was good or not.

“The world is quickly moving toward a future that will be free of passwords, as consumers realize how biometric technologies can make their lives easier,” said Jack Forestell, head of global merchant solutions for Visa.

Will hacking be finally over?

Banks opted for such measures in an attempt to make credit card usage simpler and more secure. Credit card scams are evolving nowadays, so the magnetic strips are no longer to stop criminals from stealing your money. As a side note, by the end of 2017, a lot of banks issued cards relying on the EMV technology, which makes them more secure and difficult to hack.

As for biometrics, Visa, alongside other companies which could adopt the technology in the future, believes that can finally put an end to fraud.

Currently, this is just a pilot programme, but we’re looking forward to seeing how it will evolve, as the company announced that they will use biometrics with other services as well. Are other types of cards, like rewards cards or travel cards next?